A Sacrifice, an Offering, of Praise . . .

I've been reflecting a lot on two different verses in the Bible. The first is Hebrews 13:15 which says, "Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name." The second is Psalms 119:108 which says, "Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O LORD, and teach me your rules."

These two passages are ones I have a sense are loaded with a depth of meaning I can only scratch the surface of. I wonder, what does it mean to give our praise unto God as an offering, and as a sacrifice? I have to believe this is so much more than the casual praise we lift up to God so often, or the way we might sometimes simply sing songs of worship and praise without fully being cognizant of each word and fully lifting them to Him as if from the depth of our hearts. I am thinking out loud here, and I might be wrong, but to me praising God and talking about Him can be easy. I don't normally think of the word "praise" in terms of God in a context of a sacrifice or offering. To me those words imply a cost and a determined, purposed gift.

I wonder if I am too casual in my worship and praise. Well, I know I am. There is no way my worship or praise could ever match what He is worthy of as God—holy, Creator, the One in Whom all time and goodness and love and life and light find their very origin. So I know I am too casual with my praise. I could never give Him, or express to Him, what He is truly worthy of. But that being said, I know my praise is pleasing to Him and accepted and loved. But I am wondering, is there a level of praise that I could lift to Him beyond what I am? A level of praise that is costly to me and emanating from the very core of my being?

Obviously to praise Him—to choose to praise Him—in the midst of suffering, in the midst of circumstances where His hand isn't evident, in the midst of seeming "unanswered" prayers is "costly." It is choice we must make, contrary to what we might feel. I think I get that and how that choice could be an offering and sacrifice of praise.

But what about when life is going good? When it seems like I can see Him moving in my life, providing, answering prayers, and praise is easy? How can I then give Him my praise as a sacrifice and offering? What level of meditating on Him and His attributes and His holiness and His love might I need to make the effort to do to come to that place where my praise is a sacrifice, an offering? What does that mean?

I have a picture of Him on the throne, and my handing Him my praise as a gift. My praise must be a fragrance of my life. It comes before even my requests . . . "Our Father in Heaven. Hallowed. Holy be Your name . . ." I am so casual, so quick, to speak to Him (and I know that is my privilege as His child) that at times I believe I need to just pause, and collect myself, and to wrap myself around Who it is I am about to speak to, and to breath deeply and to be in awe, and to praise Him. To worship Him. To give Him my praise as an offering. A sacrifice.

And I am still trying to figure out fully what that means. But I believe when I do it will forever change my life.

The Wind and the Sail . . .

Earlier this year Mary Ann and I were blessed to be able to slip away for a few days and visit with friends in the Shaver Lake area. While we were there a friend took us out on one of the nearby lakes on his sailboat for our first time. It was an amazing experience to move across the surface of the water without a motor, simply pushed by the wind. I was fascinated to learn how attentive the "captain" has to be to the wind and its shifting and its strengthening and subsiding. When you are on the water, with a large sail above you, you can feel the boat shift and either glide or resist, speed up or slow down, depending on the angle of your sail, and the position of your rudder which is controlled by you. I'll return to this point in a moment . . .

Pearl, who writes Be Thus Minded (see "Links," above), recently turned me on to a five-part mp3 teaching by Maj. Ian Thomas on Elijah (you can find them under her "Sunday Sermons" category). I have listened to the first one and one half of them and I am already blessed and filled with revelation. I have a feeling that many posts will spring forth from the rich food of his teaching.

In the teaching Maj. Thomas talks about (and I am paraphrasing and shortening it) a father who asks his son to mow the lawn. The son, can, obviously, think of a lot of things he'd rather do. But, either from duty, or hopefully from affection and desire to honor, gets the lawnmower and mows the lawn. The question then raised is, who is mowing the lawn?

The answer is, the father. It was not the son's idea to mow the lawn. It was not the son's desire to mow the lawn. On his own the son would not have mowed the lawn. The idea, and the desire, to mow the lawn sprang in the father's heart and he is using the son (by the son's willingness) to mow the lawn. It is the father's work that is being done. It is the father's desire that is being manifested and fulfilled. That, is the Christian life—or, at least, what it should be.

I almost had to pull off the road to absorb that. It blew me away. I had never seen it that way. And it made me think of that sailboat . . . and the wind. I want to be like that sailboat, with my sail up and sensitive to the wind of God's Spirit. I don't want the wind to blow one way and I have my sail and rudder forcibly turned to oppose it. When we tacked down the lake, in to the wind, it was a lot of work. We were constantly having to work ropes, pull with all our might, jump to the other side of the boat, etc. It was fascinating to me and a rush, in a sailing context, how we could actually go in to the wind under the wind's power—but I don't ever want that to describe my life. On our way back, running with the wind, we were able to make sandwiches, relax, take pictures, and effortlessly glide along to the destination with much greater speed and efficiency than going in to the wind.

I want to be that "boat" in the Father's wind. Whether it is in my daily life, or pastoring on a Sunday, I don't want to push my own way, or resist the wind of His Spirit. I don't want to be stuck in a set number of songs for the worship, or a set time for the teaching. If the Spirit blows and we worship for hours—or if He leads and we stop during the first song and I teach for an hour and a half . . . or don't teach at all and we just pray—I don't want to fight His Spirit's leading, but to be a sail up and eager to catch His slightest breeze and let it guide me. I want to be the son who, from affection and gratitude and honor and love, hears the Father's voice and grabs the lawnmower. Why, oh why, oh why, do I so often fight that quiet voice of His, or trust my way more than His, or demand to understand what He is doing (and why He is doing it) before I will honor Him with my faith and love and obedience?

Lesson from a Shotgun . . .

I shared the following example recently with the fellowship I pastor in a series I am currently teaching on faith as our antidote to fear. I wanted to share it here as well . . .

When I was a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army I was a platoon leader of a Cavalry reconnaissance platoon. Shortly after the invasion of Panama in 1989 we shipped down there to do peacekeeping in the country (it was in need of it as we had dismantled much of their police and military, and criminal elements and remnants of Noriega's forces were running rampant in areas).

As an officer of a mounted unit (we had Humvees with machine guns on top) the only sidearm we were issued were 9mm pistols. This was the pre-Christian part of my life, and when another Lieutenant and I were uncomfortable with having only a pistol we got 12-Gauge shotguns to carry with us. The young men in my platoon would have fun teasing me about the shotgun, but when we went to a live fire training before deploying they watched it shred a hallway of cardboard targets. They still teased me about it . . . but it was funny because whenever we got in to a tight, dismounted situation in Panama I would look around and they were all hugging in close to the shotgun! In fact, in those situations, the shotgun became the weapon on point (in the lead), and everyone came in close behind it with their M16 rifles. (Today I thank God that I never had to use the shotgun on anything other than fake targets.)

I share this story for a reason. While the guys had fun teasing me about my shotgun—when things got scary and real they pulled in close to that shotgun because they had seen how awesome and powerful it was, and they had greater faith in it to take care of them than they did in their rifles. Prior to the live fire training we did, they probably wouldn't have had such faith in the shotgun—but after seeing what it did up close against the cardboard targets, they gave it the credit it was due, and as a result had great faith in it.

Romans 4:20-21 says of Abraham: No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. Abraham grew strong in his faith AS he gave glory to God. I believe this means that as he glorified God, as he exalted God, and as he focused on God's greatness and worthiness, it increased his faith to where he had more confidence in God than in physical circumstances around him. Why? I believe because the greater we see the object of our faith, the greater our faith in it will be.

For example, if we stood over the same 200' gorge on either a modern, 4-lane, concrete and steel suspension bridge, or on a 150 year old, frayed, rope bridge, our faith that we would stay safe would probably be dramatically different in the two separate situations. Why—it is the same gorge in both instances? The answer is, because the object our faith is in is different. The steel bridge gives us a lot of reason to have faith in it—the old rope bridge doesn't. Likewise, the men in my platoon had seen my shotgun compared to their rifles in an up close situation and found they had greater faith in the shotgun. You see, faith has an object . . . and the greater our confidence in that object, the greater our faith will be.

So, if Abraham, faced with something God said was going to happen that the world said was physically impossible, grew strong in his faith as he glorified God, might we also grow stronger in our faith as we practice intentionally worshiping and glorifying God—as we habitually exalt and lift Him up to the highest place of awe and power and glory in our life? It is not that God gets any bigger as we do that, we just get reminded at the forefront of our mind about how big and awesome He is. Then, as the object of our faith (God) "increases" (in our perception), our faith increases proportionately.

The more we worship God and His awesome, holy majesty, the more we remind ourselves how great God is, and the greater our confidence in Him will be compared to our confidence in the world, man's wisdom, national forecasts, etc. Go out and stare at the stars and remind yourself there are billions of them in a galaxy, and billions of galaxies, and that He breathes them out and knows them all by name and measures them with the span of His hand. Practice intentionally worshiping and giving glory to God—like Abraham, your faith and peace and confidence in God will increase as you do.

Note: The photo is of me in Panama with one of the local kids who asked if he could polish our boots to earn money. One of my greatest joys down there was getting to know the kids and practicing my Spanish on them while they practiced their English on me. On my days off I would go into the villages and hang out with them. They would often take me to their homes where I got to meet their families and share meals with them (I remember one home with no back door on it—the chickens came in and out and walked around us in the house while we ate!). I truly fell in love with the people of that country, and view my time there as one of the best times in my life.

Adoration Night, Easter, and Some Pictures . . .

Note: These pictures have nothing to do with Adoration Night, but they were too wonderful not to share. They come from our homeschool field trip to Carrizo Plains (near California Valley) a couple of weeks ago. Mary Ann and I absolutely love the picture of Bethany and Abigail running in the field of flowers . . . of course we are both big "Little House on the Prairie" fans so that may have something to do with it!

Last night—Good Friday—we had "Adoration Night" in our home. We had done a similar thing in the week before Christmas in which we set a night aside and invited anyone in the fellowship who wanted to come to join us for a time of simply "adoring" Him. It wasn't a time to focus on us, or our own needs, but simply on Him. For the Christmas one our living room was full. Last night, about 7:15, we realized it would be just us. We poured some coffee and gathered our two girls and sat on the floor in front of the fire in our wood stove. It was a wonderful, beautiful, precious evening.

We began with talking about the love Jesus showed us on the cross—a love that was given when we didn't return or receive it. We talked about how that applies in loving others for Christ—how He gives us the example of loving when it isn't returned, and then asks us to love others that same way. It is the love He showed us, and the love He calls us to model in our lives to others. Over and over I am stumbling on to the amazing fact that everything He calls us to do in our life, He has already done in His. We love others the way He loved us. We take up our cross the way He took up His. We serve others the way He served us. Maybe that is why we are called to imitate Him . . . because He has already done Himself everything He asks us to do.

We then read from my Bible the account of the trial and crucifixion of Jesus. About half way through it Abigail gets out of my lap and goes over to their play area and gets her own child's Bible. She turns to the page with Jesus before Pilate and asks me to read from hers, too. There was something very precious and tender in that.

We talked about the trial, we talked about Satan and God, we talked about God's plan, about how Jesus gave His life (it wasn't taken from Him), and then we read Jesus' words, "It is finished." I asked the girls, "What is finished?" and both replied with their own wording of Jesus' paying for our sins. We then talked about how complete that is and how God's love for us, and our security in that love, can never be doubted because of the cross and the finality of those words, "It is finished."

When we were done we brought the communion elements over by the fire and remembered His body, broken and lashed and beaten and pierced for our sins, for our peace, and for our healing. We talked about His blood poured out for a New Covenant, one in which our relationship with God is based on what Jesus did and not on what we do, and how wonderfully secure that is. We then took communion.

Intermixed in all of the evening were spontaneous songs of worship and praise, sung clumsily but with love and gratitude—as well as prayers of thankfulness. By the time we tucked our two little precious ones in to bed about 8:45 we both knew that it had been a sweet, wonderful, special evening, and we thanked God for it.

Happy Easter: Many of you readers who have signed up for email notifications of new posts will not receive this until tomorrow morning—Easter. I wish you a most blessed of all days as you focus on His resurrection. I posted the following on my Facebook page today, and I wanted to repeat it here for you, "Have you ever thought how, if Jesus hadn't risen from the grave, we could only sing ABOUT Jesus, we couldn't sing TO Jesus? The resurrection not only gave life back to Jesus, but it gives life to our faith as well. I can't imagine my life without that truth . . ."

The other night at a "revival" in town I found myself in the middle of some very refreshing and exuberant worship and I suddenly, for a moment, had a glimpse of how very empty and dead the same words of the song would be if His bones were in a grave people visited, and He was not a living God. It is such a simple, but stunning thought . . . I could only sing about Him, I couldn't sing to Him. The ramifications and extensions of that are enough to reflect on for a lifetime—and it makes all the difference in the world . . .

Adoration Night

On the Saturday before Christmas I was preparing our church’s announcement master for making copies, and thinking about the coming Christmas week and what it was all about, and the word "adore" kept coming to me. I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to look like—I actually get afraid of so "adoring" Jesus as a baby that we forget He is also the fierce Lion of the Tribe of Judah—but I felt we were to simply adore Him.

So, we invited anyone in the fellowship who wanted to and could to come to our home that Wednesday evening before Christmas for an evening of adoring Him and praising Him. While I wanted to end the night with asking His blessing over our fellowship, community, and nation for 2010, I felt strongly that it was to simply be a night about Him, not about us.

It ended up that Wednesday that nine of us sat in our living room, around the wood stove, with the Christmas lights on the tree, and began by sharing what Christmas meant to us in our hearts. It was beautiful to hear how the different facets of the Christmas message touched and sustained people differently. After a time we began singing to Him, hymns and carols, and then we entered a time of simply praying out loud, as each was led who wanted to—to Him, about Him. We simply thanked Him and praised Him and “adored” Him. Finally, at the end, we asked His blessing over the things I already mentioned. One lady sang a cappella that night a song declaring there to be a “sweet, sweet presence in the place,” and she was so right. Another shared with me later in the week that the presence of the Spirit was strong there that night—almost as if we should have been laying hands on one another.

I shared a little about this in passing on Facebook the week after Christmas, and a friend mentioned that she was going to a New Year’s Eve “Praying in the New Year” gathering and hoped it would be as sweet as our Adoration night which I had described. I quickly typed back an answer to her, “I find that often that sweet sense doesn't happen without intention. I really worked to keep the focus on simply praising and talking about Him, and not about our individual needs. There is absolutely a place for personal prayer needs, but sometimes I just long for the corporate focus on Him alone.”

In thinking afterwards about that quick response, I find in it a deep core of truth for all of us. While God will show up (in some way beyond simply the indwelling) almost anywhere, at any time, unexpectedly—and, while there is a time and place and need for our personal prayers and petitions—there is something about an intentional decision to simply focus on and worship Him that draws His presence. Maybe it is found in that verse that says wherever two or more are gathered in His name He is there—even when we know that He is already in us as a believer. Maybe it is a multiplication issue in some way we don’t understand. But, I find that even intentional focus and worship as an individual seems to also draw His sweet presence.

Psalm 100:4 says, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! . . .” I take this as a reference to the temple, and to get to His presence in the Holy of Holies in the center of the temple one had to pass through gates and courts. So, it would seem, that thanksgiving and praise are the "gates" and "courts" that draw us closer to the center of His heart and magnified presence.

I really believe He was strongly among us that night, and I really believe it was so strong because, while we each had personal issues in our lives, I made an intentional decision to keep the focus on Him and not on us, and to steer it back to Him alone each time it wandered from that focus. I share this as an encouragement to you, that maybe you will find in it a seed of something you would like to do in your own life if you aren’t already. God bless you, and Happy New Year!